Schroedinger's Life
by lobsterati
Summary: Harry Potter gets AIDS.


Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. No copyright infringement is intended. This story neither for sale or profit.

Schroedinger's Life

by lobsterati

When the first unexplainable bleeding growth appeared on his skin, Harry Potter began to worry. Normally the mucous membranes inside his mouth didn't spontaneously leak blood, but this was the third time this week and he was certain harsh toothbrush bristles weren't the cause.

"Well, fuck," he said, pulling his toothbrush out of his mouth and staring at it. It was pink foam and a green plastic handle. "Maybe I have gingivitis."

Draco sauntered by the bathroom completely in the nude, as he was often inclined to simply go without clothes in the apartment that he and Harry shared. The blinds were open, but Draco admittedly got his rocks off on voyeurism and Harry got his off on embarrassment, so it all worked out in the end.

"There a problem, sugar cane?" asked Draco, drawling the endearment into a slur of sarcasm. They had taken to mockingly calling each other by the most sickeningly sweet pet names possible. It was their way of declaring their relationship but delivering a grand old fuck-you to those who thought they were going to get married or something like that. They weren't. Sure, love was involved, but mostly there was just a lot of spanking. This utilitarianism had emerged in them during the Great War. It wasn't romantic, but it suited them.

"Yeah," replied Harry, rinsing the bristles under cool water. "I got gingivitis."

In the kitchen, Draco opened the fridge and wrinkled his nose, half at the idea of gingivitis and half at the moulded fruit. "Well don't fucking use my toothbrush then."

Harry shrugged and dropped the green toothbrush into the holder, then picking his blue one out of rack and dousing it under the tap so Draco wouldn't know.

The unexplained sores were probably nothing.

"Hey there, sugar cane," said Draco, delivering a resounding slap to Harry's bare ass cheek. The smack rebounded off the wall and made Harry wince at the loud noise. He half turned to Draco, teeth set on edge as his lover strolled over to his locker--once again completely bare as the moment he was born-- and began to pull his street clothes out of the metal locker.

"Draco," hissed Harry. "You're making a scene." He clutched his clothes to himself, wet swimming trunks already wrapped up in his damp towel and half-way dressed. Hurridly, Harry pulled on his jeans and tried not to let his embarrassed blush become too obvious.

The rest of the males in the public swimming pool changeroom stared.

Draco snorted and rolled his eyes. As if he gave a royal shit about what some Muggles thought. The Slytherin stopped halfway, though, as he saw the handprint outlined in harsh red on Harry's asscheek. It would bruise.

Odd.

He hadn't hit Harry that hard.

'Come to think of it,' thought Draco, turning and giving the shorter boy a thorough looking over, 'Where did all those other bruises come from?' Harry's skin was mottled with bruises in various stages of healing, from deep gushing purple to a hesitant, sickly yellowish brown. They should have been healed by now. But they weren't.

In fact, that one other handprint from about a week ago--Draco's mind flitted back to that particular evening of delights involving a pair of handcuffs and sunflower seeds--it was still there. It looked fresh, too.

Draco bit his lip, puzzled at this recent turn of events.

Maybe he'd have to start taking it easy on the brown-haired man from now on. By the bench, Harry was still blushing furiously and made motions for Draco to hurry up so they could go. Draco's eyebrow quirked at the sight of Harry's damp hair clinging in tendrils to his slickened skin.

Take it easy?

Pah.

* * *

"Angel cakes," said Harry idly one night as he fell back against the pillows. "Does leather stretch?" For the second time that day, Harry's forehead was damp with sweat and his chest heaved because of something Draco had done. The first time, however, it had been because the blonde had asked Harry to help him carry the groceries up the stairs. This time, it was because Draco and Harry had spent a good half an hour working towards this wonderful after-glowy state where drowsiness and supreme relaxation made for interesting conversation.

Draco propped himself up on his elbow to face Harry and traced a racing car's circuit around the taller man's chest. He was fascinated by the way Harry's pectoral muscles would quiver and flinch. Despite the oddness of the question, Draco simply couldn't find it within himself to retort with perfect aplomb and sarcasm. So instead, he settled for a dazy smile, a gentle brush of one set of legs on another beneath the covers and a raised eyebrow.

"Mm, not quite finished today, are we?"

Harry didn't chuckle back. Instead, he stared up at the ceiling into the middle distance and swallowed.

"So it does?"

Draco leaned forward to lick his bobbing adam's apple. Harry made a noise of irritation which Draco smoothly ignored. If Harry didn't want Draco to desire him, he'd have to start wearing a potato sack. Hm. Wait. Hold the phone, there were possibilities here... Draco growled with the thought.

"No, no... Does it?" Harry's voice interrupted a pleasant reverie with the insistence of a Klaxon.

Draco halted his tongue for a moment on the salty skin and thought for a moment. "It can." He resumed his ministrations with vigour and enthusiasm. He was a poster boy for persistence. Suddenly Harry's hand found its way into his hair and pushed him aside. Draco fell back against his pillow and snorted indignantly at Harry like a cat ripped away from the cream dish.

Harry stared levelly at the blonde, and gradually Draco's ire cooled. The taller man's eyes flicked down to the blankets where his fingers were curling into the sheets and once more he swallowed. The mood shifted from one of warm, relaxed intimacy to a mild amber alert.

"What?" asked Draco insistently, not wanting to draw it out of Harry in bits a pieces. God knew he loved the damn wizard, but he could be so fucking coy when he was nervous about something. Draco had no patience for pussy footing around an issue. Harry balked. "What?" insisted Draco again, leaning forward. "Spit it out."

"I... lost... a lot of weight, okay? And I was just wondering if it was me getting smaller or my leather pants... you know. Bigger." Harry exhaled and looked over Draco's shoulder. The blonde thumped back down into the bed.

"Oh for Merlin's sake. You're acting like a woman, concerned about how big your ass is getting, am I using protection, what shoes go with your earrings." He snorted into the pillow, supremely annoyed that their special time had been interrupted for Harry's stupid concerns over the shape of his ass.

In a reply to Harry's non-response to Draco's stinging rebuke, Draco thumped back on his side. "I like your ass the way it is, okay? Fat, thin, covered in sesame seeds, your ass is dandy."

Harry's hand was warm on his shoulder for a moment and Draco felt the taller man's weight settling back into the sheets beside him and a warm exhalation of laughter on the nape of his neck.

Finally. He could get some goddamned sleep.

"Night, Snowy-Cone," muttered Draco and let his eyes drift close. Behind him, Harry's eyes did not close and he did not drift into comforting sleep. Harry was thinking about his ass and how his ribs had started showing and how no matter what he ate, he seemed to have an awful lot of diarrhoea lately.

Finally, he started thinking about how the shape of his collar bone was sharper lately and why his nose had been running in a cold for the past three weeks.

For three weeks.

When Harry did fall asleep, it was light and troubled.

* * *

"Aw, Pumpkin-Hon," said Harry. "I'm not getting out of bed today."

Draco glanced over at his lover, flushed, sweating, covering his mouth to wreak dry, hacking coughs into his fist. Draco deftly began tying the symbolic knot on his ceremonial robes, fingers easily tugging the black fabric into the ancient patterns. It was Hermione's promotion ceremony and it was being conducted with full honours. As much as he disliked Granger as a person, Draco had a whole boatload of respect for the competent leader and didn't mind expressing it. Sure, she was a raging bitch in his mind, but she was a skilful and efficient raging bitch.

Draco could work with that.

"Are you still dizzy, butter scone?" he asked, inspecting himself in the mirror. The mirror-ghoul gave Draco the thumbs up and the blonde smiled in satisfaction. "Granger said it's alright if you can't make it."

Harry started, sending a flurry of tissues and magazines to the floor. "The ceremony is today?" he asked with alarm, pushing himself into a painful upright position. His swollen joints creaked in protest and his bruised muscles quivered under the strain. Whatever this sickness was, thought Draco, it was sure doing a number on the normally resilient Harry.

Harry bared his teeth with the effort of sitting up in bed, and let his pallid feet thump down to the floor. His head swam in a sickening dance and the thick soup of bile in his belly threatened to make the journey up through his mouth to daylight. With firm resolution, Harry bit back his nausea and regained his balance.

"I gotta get dressed," he said in a daze. "Her... Hermione's waiting. She worked so... so hard, you know?"

If only the hippogriffs would stop trumping around in his head and chest, Harry was sure that the trip to Hogwarts would have been no trouble at all. As it was, he bleared at Draco's hand settling in a firm presence on his chest and that sardonic voice twisting into his ear.

"Sugar-cane, you're not well enough. Hermione understands."

"No," protested Harry with a rallying of force that surprised even Draco. "It doesn't matter. Just prop me up in the back."

Draco sighed as Harry's notoriously thick skull deflected his well meant intentions with all the ease of a glass window deflecting a sparrow's flight. Easily, Draco batted away the collar of Harry's ceremonial robe out of the taller man's reach and pushed on Harry's chest with his fingers. Harry snarled in frustration and shot Draco a look of pure venom.

Draco stared back evenly into Harry's furious look and held the collar just out of his reach. "You're not going. You're not well enough. You need to recover from this Hell-sent cold before you can leave the house. Granger owled and says she's in complete sympathy."

Harry made a dismissive noise and hefted himself to a shaky stand. "Fuck it, I'm going and that's fin--"

Draco blinked in shock as a blurt of blood exploded from Harry's mouth and spackled over his pajamas. For a moment, the two men could only stare at each other in shock before Harry's shaking fingers reached up to touch the sticky blood coating his chin. His eyes lifted to meet Draco's and in them he could see quite plainly what Draco hoped he would never see again.

Fear.

"Draco, I--" Harry began. He was cut short by his sudden plummeting to the carpeted floor. Draco darted to catch his lover, and wiped away the blood easing its way through Harry's white teeth.

"Harry?" asked Draco, hoping that the brunet would regain his senses. When no answer was forthcoming, Draco allowed a hint of the fear he felt to ease into his voice. "Harry?" his voice was higher pitched, and his hands had begun to tremble. With a shaking grasp, he brought forth his wand.

Hospital. They needed a hospital.

"Fuck," hissed Draco as Harry gave a shudder and began to choke on the blood seeping from the open sores in his mouth and throat. Harry was literally drowning in his own blood. "Fuck!" hissed Draco again, and regained some of his own senses.

"Apparate!"

The warmth of two living bodies vanished, leaving only the floating, disembodied face of the mirror-ghoul hovering in between nowheres.

Draco laid his hands flat on the tabletop, and leaned across, speaking to the receptionist goblin in a tone one normally reserved for idiots and first years. "What--do--you--mean--you--need--a-special--ist?" They were physicians. They should have literally been able to wave their magic wands and make Harry Potter all better.

The goblin stared at him, heavily madeup eyelids sinking down and then rising up like a piece of driftwood on the tide. She obviously didn't care. "Siddown, sahr. The doctor'll be with ya as soon as she can."

Harry's blood didn't show on the black fabric of his ceremonial robes, but that hadn't stopped Draco from obsessively scrubbing at the spots in the hospital bathroom while he waited on news. That had been nearly half an hour ago, and the water had turned his fine, sleek robes into a crinkly mess. He rubbed viciously at one eye in a gesture of supreme annoyance. His hair was in a frizzled halo around his head, and outside in the street lamps burned with a greasy orange light.

The message didn't seem to be getting through.

Realising that nothing would be gained by shouting at the little goblin, Draco turned around and trudged back to the seating area. Worry was making him sick, and Draco stared at the courtesy doughnuts and coffee with an expression of distaste. What he could do, however, was fuss.

And fuss Draco did.

He began pulling at the loose threads of his robes, then smoothing the fabric with his hands. It didn't help his robes, but it helped Draco to feel better. He needed something to occupy his mind as he contemplated the unthinkable.

Namely, what if Harry Potter didn't walk through that door once again? What if the last time Draco touched his living flesh was when Harry's blood was pouring through his teeth? What if Draco had to face the assured publicity that Harry's death would incur? Imagine reporters, interviews, paparazzi and investigations. Harry's death turned from a personal tragedy to the media circus of the century. Thousands of people to compose a biography, write him a themesong and make media presentations. All those people swarming busily over Harry's still-cooling corpse like ants, ripping his life's foundations down to kinder to burn on his funeral pyre.

Well, at least it would be good for the economy. Draco smiled without a drop of humour and his shoulders moved in a wheezy laugh.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco looked up. The doctor flinched under the blonde's stare and averted her eyes.

"Mr. Malfoy, I... "

Draco's heart froze in his chest, a painful sensation. He was barely able to, but he stood. Malfoys were dignified always. Always. His father's stern hand of discipline would not go in vain. Consciously, Malfoy straightened his back to an iron pole, lifted his chin and banished any tears prickling like icicles at the sides of his vision.

His black robe fell in a rustling of cloth around his form, ancient Malfoy knots twisting the cloths and ties into an impressive, intimidating air. Draco took comfort in his clothes, hid within them, drew strength from his family's history and reputation. He was a Malfoy. He was fucking untouchable.

Draco steadied his gaze and met the doctor's eye, prepared. God help him, Draco was ready.

If only his hands would stop trembling.

* * *

Classical music played in the background. It was slow and sweeping, a cello piece composed by Great Uncle Something-Or-Other on the eve of his suicide. Candles flicked and reflected their light on the polished oak tabletop and on the silver. Suckling pig, caviar, pâte de gras and all other delicacies were arrayed in a fine spread on the table, and at the moment Draco was finishing up his salad course.

With a conscious precision, he speared a slice of cucumber on the end of his salad fork (tines down) and placed it within his mouth silently. He chewed silently. He swallowed silently. He hunted for more cucumber and speared it, too, with the thick tine on the left of the specialized salad fork.

His napkin was in his lap and for the second time that week his ceremonial robes were draped over his form. Draco signalled his desire for a clearing by delicately placed the fork on the edge of his plate at a forty-five degree angle and the knife (blade towards himself) at another forty-five degree angle opposite it. The servants, recognizing this gesture, silently hushed forwards and with a murmur of obeisance, removed the offending plate from before the young master.

Lucius smiled thinly at his son and then to his wife, who had mimicked her son's actions. Draco smiled politely and the servants re-entered with the fish course. It was all carried out in the most dignified silence.

Dinner with the fam.

Narcissa smiled at her son and cleared her throat delicately. It sounded like an explosion in the muffled silence of the Malfoy dining hall.

"Draco," she said, sounding somewhat welcoming. Draco merely shifted uncomfortably. "You haven't been home in so long. Your father and I are very pleased you've decided to speak to us again. We--"

"Are glad you've come to your senses," interrupted Lucius smoothly, spearing a fillet on the tines of his fish fork ruthlessly. "That Mudblood you caroused with--"

Draco let his fork clatter on the plate. "Father," he said roughly. "Potter isn't dead. Yet. I'm here because he requested it of me." Draco's mouth twisted in an ugly line. "He has a fetish for happy families."

Lucius cast a furious eye at his heir, but smothered it by smoothly cutting another slice off his fillet. He burned as brightly and as silently as one of the beeswax candles. "Well, thankfully you don't have that same wasting disease as the Mudblood. Your pure lineage protected you from that blood illness." His tone was ruthless and directed, driving barbs towards his only son's heart.

Draco didn't reply. It wasn't as if he could change his father. It wasn't as if his father wanted to be changed. His father sat there on his throne of jewels and spat in the face of those he would eventually depend on. Draco. One day Draco would be the master of the Malfoy clan, and when that day came...

Draco sliced through the fish head with impunity and the cutlery squealed on the fine china.

Narcissa winced at the damage done to their antique plates. "Draco, please," she said, taking up her small cup of wine and sipping. It was her fourth since the meal had begun, and there were still three courses to go. "Draco, we would..." her lips trembled as the great Narcissa floundered about for the right word. "Expect an heir of the Estate Malfoy to conduct himself with more..." Her words failed her, and Narcissa was forced to trail off and gesture with her veined hand.

This was too much for Draco, who had been 'conducting' himself with what he had believed to be great restraint. He slapped his utensils down onto the fine china plate and the rattle echoed through the great, dim hall. The servants froze, Lucius froze, and Narcissa's hand ceased its circuit in midair.

Furiously, Draco snatched the embroidered napkin from off his lap and began blotting at the sauce that was now staining the table cloth. He had just violated one of the most serious dinner time taboos. Namely, the expression of too much public emotion to the point where it became physical. To speak harshly was one thing--that was encouraged. A rapier wit was the pride of the Malfoy clan. But brute physical violence?

They were above such things.

Narcissa was shocked. Hurridly she gulped at the wine in her cup, draining it in a matter of seconds. Her fingers snapped for another cup. Lucius' fingers curled on the table cloth and he slowly coloured an angry red. No one spoke as Draco continued to blot at the sauce on the table cloth with firm concentration, not looking up at his parents. The servants clung to the walls like spiders.

"As you would not stand for any insult against my mother, your wife, Lucius, and you would not stand for such against my father, your husband, Narcissa, I will not stand for this treatment of... of--him. He is laying on his deathbed," edged out Draco intensely, spitting each word onto the table fiercely. The stain was more than adequately attended to, but Draco continued to mop at the cloth. He forced the words out of his mouth in a stumbling manner. "And harming him is harming me. Insulting him is insulting me. The fact that..."

Draco lost his voice abruptly. His hand stilled.

He was hurt. "The fact that you cannot... He is beneath Death's hand. I hoped that you would recall what kind of vows I'm breaking just eating dinner here. But it's for him. He asked me to. The Mudblood. The Mudblood wanted me here. He said he wanted us to reconcile."

Lucius' breath hissed out of his nose impassively, but Narcissa could see the lines of tension in her husband's neck. A servant placed a fresh cup of wine before her and she grasped it gratefully and drank deeply. Oh, what she would give for Draco to return home. Her heart was beating inside her chest frightfully like a butterfly.

Draco stood. "But I can see that is an impossibility." His voice was bitter. "I'm leaving. The physicians aren't sure how much longer."

After he Apparated, the Great Hall silent once more and the servants began to clear away the dishes. In the background, a violin hummed out the last threads of a dying song.

* * *

Draco sat outside the hospital on one of the cheerful little courtesy benches. Above him, the patients' lights glowed in a checkerboard of loss and recovery. Some were dying, some were regaining life up there, while down below Draco wasn't sure exactly where he was going.

He made a sound of frustration deep in his throat, and scrubbed against his face with pale hands. He had always been a wilful child, one prone to forcing his way to prove a point, hounding an opponent into humiliated submission and ruthlessly exploiting every flaw he could lay tooth or nail upon. But these tricks came to no use in this situation, and Draco was beginning to feel very much alone and very, very much afraid.

"Oh, Har-reee..." he breathed, shaking his head, gripping his hair, shifting his feet and curling into himself. His mental distress being so high, Draco didn't even notice that he was physically squirming on the hook of this calamity. "Harry, Harry, Harry..." His hurt was needling against his belly, and Draco shamelessly writhed, hoping somehow, begging God or Whoever was Up There for some kind of relief. The strain on Harry was lethal, but the strain on Draco was grinding as well. He begged for an end to his own pain as much as he did for Harry's.

He had left his job. He had given them the finger on his way out. Who the fuck cared about paperwork or even catching criminals when he could barely get out of bed in the morning, let alone focus his mind on any simple task?

His family? Pah. That one wasn't even worth considering.

Friends? What friends? Draco wasn't one for friends, per say. He had work-acquaintances, and business connections, but no one other than Harry who he would plan on spending an evening with.

He could go to the hospital counselling staff, but even that felt empty. They would sympathize, yes, but only in that pre-ordained, general sense in which they cared for all who suffered. What Draco wanted right now was comforting on the specific sort, the kind where someone who knew you inside and out would whisper in your ear and stroke your hand. All the things they knew would make you feel right as rain again.

What Draco wanted, right at this particular moment, was Harry. His mother would have done in a pinch, but present circumstances prevented that. He wanted Harry. He wanted to touch Harry, be near Harry and just look at him.

The blonde lifted his head and searched out the window burning brightly in the damp, grey night with Harry's dying body tucked away inside. Instead of going to him, though, Draco clutched at his head and whimpered.

Harry was up there. Dying, sick, wasting-away Harry. Harry who chocked on his own blood, who weighed barely a hundred pounds. Harry who caught a common cold and nearly died. Harry who had once spat in Voldemort's face.

And here was Draco, too chicken-shit to look him in the eye. The realisation made Draco shudder and his stomach cramp painfully. He was afraid of what he would see in those eyes. He was terrified at the idea of looking Death in the face. As long as he hid down here, Harry's death was perpetually put off. Harry was preserved inside a safe web of memories. After all, what would Draco do without him? How would he live? Who would he come home to? Whose friends would he chat with? Whose stuff would he share his house with? These situations were ones Draco had acclimatized himself to. Years of gradual breaking down of barriers, of opening of hearts, all shot to hell. It would be royally fucked if Harry died.

His breath hitched. He was so dependant, and at that moment Draco realised it.

"Such a fucking useless..." The blonde wiped away tears with the back of his hand, but a entourage of tears was close behind. "So fucking... uesless... It's all so fucking useless..."

He was so fucking useless. Dependant, worthless, powerless little worm hiding away from what he feared down in a hospital's garden, Draco savagely thought and wrenched his head up to look at Harry's window. There was no hope. Not in this 'terminal' stage as the physicians had said grimly, avoiding his eyes just as Draco avoided theirs. They'd done a macabre dance around each other, one hedging out the details and the other pretending to take the news matter-of-fact and frankly.

There wasn't any hope, thought Draco as he watched the burning light of Harry's lamp. All he could do as sit alone in the garden and wait for a brilliant star to gently, slowly and inevitably collapse in on itself.

"Harry," choked out Draco one final time, and found he couldn't speak anymore.

fin


End file.
